Dominating the Unwitting: Winning the Five Boro Bike Tour

Yesterday in New York City approximately 30,000 people took to the streets for the Five Boro Bike Tour. This ride was an excellent opportunity for cyclists of all levels to enjoy the sights of New York City in a relaxed, car-free environment. And while the ride was completely non-competitive, for some cyclists any situation involving more than one rider is potentially a race. I was extremely lucky to score a fake interview with the fictional winner of the Five Boro Bike Tour, Lawrence Orbach of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. This is a rider who knows that any situation, no matter how laid back and social, is fair game for victory.

How did you get into competitive non-competitive cycling?

I actually came to cycling from the charity walk circuit. AIDS, MS, ALS—you name an acrononymous disease and I walked for it. At first I did it just to participate, but after finishing a few in the front group I realized I had what it took to win. Taking the Nashville Cares AIDS Walk of 2002 really pushed me over the top. Now I’ve got a trophy room full of giveaway windbreakers, t-shirts, and water bottles that would blow your mind.

What made you leave charity walking in favor of cycling?

The whole charity walk scene is a real mess right now. There’s a big argument going on now in the USATF about what should actually be considered “walking.” It used to be that power-walking was OK, but now they’re trying to ban it, saying it’s too close to running. Personally, I think that’s ridiculous. It’s totally killing innovation in the sport. I say if you don’t break into a full-on jog then you’re walking. Plus, they let people in motorized wheelchairs into charity walks. What’s that about? I can’t power-walk, but I still have to compete against someone with a 300 watt motor? Total BS.

So is that what drove you to leave while at the top of the sport?

Yeah, I just got tired of it. For awhile I was finding inspiration in some of the underground charity walks for lesser-known causes that the younger walkers have been organizing. They call them “Backalley Struts.” Probably the coolest one was the 2004 Berkeley Strut for Acid Reflux. We put together a team called the Heel-Toe Express and did the whole thing in tap shoes. It was a blast. But after awhile that scene got tiring too. Way too cliquey and fashion oriented, and the whole fixed-leg thing where you don’t bend your knees at all has gotten totally out of hand. Meanwhile, I’d been cross-training on the bike for awhile already so I decided to give organized cycling a try.

This is your first victory in a totally non-competitive organized leisure ride. When you lined up Sunday morning, did you think you could win it?

Well, I knew I had the fitness. I’d been training intensely the whole month leading up to the Tour, putting in serious mileage on the West Side bike path and in Central and Prospect Parks. I do all my training on really nice days when the bike path and the park are totally packed with families and children so I can simulate the conditions of an organized tour. You’ve got to be able to pick your line and plow right through them. Remember—a lot of these people don’t even realize they’re racing. That makes beating them especially challenging.

So yeah, I knew going in I had the legs. But when you unstrap your bike from the trunk rack of your Volvo and line up with all those people on Church Street, some of whom have Pez dispensers glued to their helmets and are blowing on party noisemakers like it’s New Year’s Eve 1999, you can’t help but be nervous.

When did you know you had the FiBo sewn up?

I’d say it was when we hit the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which is a highway that they actually close to motorized traffic especially for the Tour. Of course, there was still one motor on that highway yesterday, and it was me. There’s a slight incline where the BQE goes over the Gowanus Canal, and I just put my head down and drilled it. By the time we hit the approach to the Verrazano bridge I was part of an elite group of five comprised of a 74 year-old man on a Colnago, a middle-aged substitute teacher from Minnesota with a pinwheel taped to her handlebars, a guy on a recumbent trike, a real gear-masher with treetrunks for thighs towing a tandem kiddie trailer off the back of a hybrid, and of course me. I pulled off once we hit the span, forcing the sub to the front and making her do all the work. As soon as we hit the top though I attacked from behind the group, went into a full aero tuck, and bombed it straight into the festival at Fort Wadsworth, Shaolin Isle.

Orbach's steed. If you rode the Five Boro yesterday you only saw this from the back.

(Image from Velospace via a reader.)

What’s next for you as a cyclist?

Well, this is a great win for me. The Five Boro Bike Tour is a monument of recreational cycling. In many ways it’s the Flanders of leisure bike tours. I’ll probably take it easy for the next few weeks, maybe do some speed-walking, and then ramp up my training again with an eye towards a high finish in the MS Bike Tour 30-miler in the Fall. Some of the local amateur road racing teams have already expressed interest in signing me up as a Cat 5, but for the moment I’m not really interested. Beating 20 other guys in the park doesn’t even compare to utterly crushing over 30,000 people on a course that covers all five New York City boroughs.

Plus, I’m not really all that comfortable riding with drop bars yet.